Snapshots of agricultural scenes, probably taken during the 1920s, on lands belonging to H. J. (Hobart Johnstone) Whitley,
possibly near Corcoran, California, in the San Joaquin Valley, east of Paso Robles.

Background

California real estate developer and banker. Hobart Johnstone Whitley came to Southern California in the mid-1880s after following
the westward expansion of the frontier railroads across the country, and successfully founding scores of towns throughout
the Oklahoma Territory, Dakotas, and Texas . As a major investor in the Los Angeles Pacific Boulevard and Development Co.,
Whitley, along with associates Harrison Gray Otis and George W. Hoover, was responsible for much of the development of land
at the south end of the Cahuenga Pass known as the Hollywood Ocean View Tract, as well as a commercial district on Highland
Ave. He organized a land syndicate in 1909 to develop the southern end of the San Fernando Valley, creating the towns of Van
Nuys, Reseda, and Canoga Park on 47,500 acres of farmland formerly owned by wheat magnate Isaac Newton Van Nuys. Whitley also
purchased large tracts of land further north in the San Joaquin Valley, where he built the city of Corcoran, although he died
in 1931 before his last development, Whitley Gardens east of Paso Robles, was completed.

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